About

DinoGenics: Dinosaur Park Management

$144,682

pledged of $30,000 goal

2,726

backers

DinoGenics is a worker placement game where players compete to build the most successful and profitable dinosaur park. Each player takes on the role of a multi-billion dollar corporation, each with access to their private island park. Over the course of seven seasons, players will send workers to the nearby mainland to collect resources such as DNA, fences and other necessities needed to run a successful park.

Once a player has assembled their resources, they get to choose how to layout their individual parks and decide which dinosaurs they will attempt to house. Parks with the most prestigious dinosaurs will attract the most visitors, but remember, dinosaurs have a mind of their own and if neglected or improperly penned, they will attempt to escape and spread havoc.

DinoGenics plays out over 7 seasons, each composed of an Open Season and an Upkeep phase. During the Open Season phase, players will attract visitors based on the reputation of their individual parks. Reputation in DinoGenics is decided primarily by the types of dinosaurs a park contains; in general, the more dangerous the dinosaur, the more exciting it will be for visitors and increase your reputation the most.

The T-Rex is one of the most valuable dinosaurs when it comes to reputation, unfortunately it also requires the largest habitat and consumes more meat per season than any other dinosaur.

Reputation is important because the more visitors your park attracts the more money you will receive in a season. Reputation also determines player order, with the highest reputation park owners deciding where they send workers before lesser parks.

Players take turns assigning their workers to action spaces on the mainland board based on their reputation order. Once a worker is placed, a player immediately pays any associated costs and receives the benefit of the chosen Action Space.

DNA cards are just one of the resources that can be collected by workers. Turn in a complete set of DNA at the DinoGenics research facility to produce a matching dinosaur.

Mainland action spaces are limited. Players need to prioritize when and where they send their workers to get the best results. Having a bunch of high value carnivores is great until you don’t have enough meat to feed them. Once all players have assigned all of their workers, play progresses to the Upkeep Phase.

Placing workers during the open season allows players to produce new dinosaurs, arrange fences or buy facilities.

During the Upkeep Phase each park owner must attempt to feed any carnivores in his or her park. Failure to feed carnivores or properly pen dinosaurs will result in the potential destruction of park facilities or the death of visitors.

A focus on lower value herbivores can help you avoid high meat upkeep costs, but keep a close on your competitors. If they build heavy into carnivores, they will easily outpace you in reputation.

Following the feeding step, all visitors are returned to the main stockpile and any building resources or benefits are generated.

At this point, the game will advance to the next season.

As a game of DinoGenics progresses, limited action spaces such as the Farm and the Uplink become highly contested. It is important to plan your turns in advance to prevent being blocked.

Mutants on their own are not worth much but if you combo them with the right facilities you can make them pay off as much as more popular dinosaurs.

Want to find out more about how DinoGenics plays? You can download a digital copy of the current rulebook by clicking the rulebook graphic below. Please be aware that rulebook artwork and layout are still a work in progress and subject to change.

After numerous requests, we have decided to offer the most requested item from our first campaign. If you are interested in purchasing an additional set of Dinosaur Meeples, add the listed dollar amount to your Kickstarter pledge total. When the Pledge Manager is sent out, you will have the option to choose where the extra money was spent.

DinoMeeps add-on includes 6x of each normal dinosaur and 10x mutants.

A render of one of the Double Layered Island Board now included with every copy of the game.

DinoGenics now includes 20 custom Goat meeples with every copy of the game.

Prototype of the Upgraded Fence Stretch Goal.

We’ve been in close communications with our manufacturer and shipping company to reduce game weight and keep the associated shipping costs down. In order to make sure that these costs are as low as possible we are going to be charging shipping after the campaign ends. Backers will gain access to our Pledge Manager by email roughly two months after this campaigns completion.

The below numbers are our best shipping estimates as of September 26, 2017 and may fluctuate slightly between now and the time we ship, but we are confident these numbers will be accurate within a couple dollars.

Also, in an effort to help backers in more expensive regions, we are offering a group pledge level. If you can find a person to split a two pack of the game with you, shipping becomes dramatically lower per person. The below prices are costs per "2-pack" of DinoGenics.

Risks and challenges

This is a relaunch of DinoGenics, which we first brought to Kickstarter in August. During our first campaign, we learned a lot about how Kickstarter works as well as the limitations of the platform. Now, we are returning with a stronger understanding of the platform and our audience. We have also doubled down on our artwork and will have a number of new pieces to share with you in the coming days.

DinoGenics has been in development for over three years and we have finally brought it to a point where we feel it is ready for the public. Now, as we are nearing the finish line we need the little extra push that only Kickstarter can provide.

As it stands currently, the game has been in controlled playtesting for about two years and started blind-playtesting about eight months ago. Game art assets are about 85% complete and we have two great illustrators waiting on standby to finish production. Once the remaining artwork is commissioned everything will receive a final coat of polish and then it will be sent off to our manufacturer.

On the production side of things, we have chosen to go with Panda Games Manufacturing. Panda has been great to work with since the early days of our collaboration and has already provided us with some phenomenal production samples. With their help, we are confident that we can deliver a high quality product to rival anything put out by a major publisher.

One final hurdle is the matter of fulfillment time-frame and shipping. We have tacked on an extra couple months to our fulfillment timeline to accommodate any production delays. In addition, we have partnered with a shipping distributor that will provide customs friendly shipping to most of the world. Once manufacturing is complete, the game will be delivered to local hubs all around the world.

All of this said we are realistic and believe in complete transparency. If unforeseen delays occur, we are determined to keep our backers informed every step of the way. With your help, we intend to produce a quality product that we hope will satisfy all of our backers.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $200 or more
About $200

Park Founder

Receive a copy of DinoGenics complete with all unlocked stretch goals. In addition, you will get the opportunity to name* one of the five competing corporations and be listed as its founder and CEO in the rulebook.

* Corporation name must meet community and theme standards. No copyright infringing material, racist, sexist, or otherwise offensive names will be accepted. We reserve the right to reject name submissions for any reason.